The Eugenics Wars are one of those events from Star Trek history that we've learned very little about despite their extreme importance. During its fourth season, Enterprise revisited the Eugenics Wars and their aftermath in a three-part arc comprised of “Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” and “The Augments.” In this episode of Warp Five hosts Christopher Jones and Kate Walsh discuss the trilogy, the brilliant performance by Brent Spiner as Dr. Arik Soong, how it plays into the great debate of genetic enhancement, why Malik is a poor man's Khan, and how the story excels in some areas while failing in others.

Star Trek has a history of allowing actors to direct episodes. Often this comes in the form of a dual role on a specific series, but also familiar faces from one incarnation of Star Trek have gone on to helm stories in later installments. One such case is Robert Duncan McNeill, who not only gave us brilliant performances as Tom Paris but also brought a wonderful creative vision to both Voyager and Enterprise. In this episode of Warp Five hosts Christopher Jones and Kate Walsh are joined by Robbie to discuss the process of directing Enterprise, how he drew upon experience as an actor and director on Voyager, and about the overall artistic challenges and rewards of directing television.

Enterprise was set up to recapture the triumvirate of The Original Series; and having a Vulcan in that mix was only logical. In a pre-launch interview in Star Trek Communicator, Larry Nemecek described it this way: "Stoic rationality with a dose of paternal arrogance. The character of Sub-Commander T'Pol embodies everything humans have come to feel about Vulcans in the short span since Zefram Cochrane and first contact." And that's just who she was—at first. But over the course of four seasons T'Pol became so much more, shifting from the world of her Vulcan roots to that of her human crewmates. In this episode of Warp Five hosts Christopher Jones and Kate Walsh take a close look at T'Pol, the process of casting Jolene Blalock, the challenges of recapturing Vulcan, the key turning points on her journey, and some of our favourite T'Pol moments.

Dr. Crusher used fancy Starfleet technology to solve medical puzzles. Dr. Bashir used those things too—along with his genetical enhanced mind. Practicing medicine in the 24th century seemed to be mostly about teching the biotech. But for those of us who grew up with TOS, Dr. McCoy’s ability to come up with unique solutions, or eyeball the mixture of an elixir, gave us the feeling that medicine was also going where no one had gone before. With Enterprise the idea of frontier medicine returned as Dr. Phlox solved problems the old-fashioned way: with nature.

In this episode of Warp Five, hosts Christopher Jones and Kate Walsh take a look inside Phlox’s sickbay. The joint is a literal menagerie—only the animals here aren’t merely for show. These critters are put to work to cure all sorts of ailments that afflict the crew as they explore alien worlds for the very first time. Plus, we learn why broth is one of the most important things on the ship.

The creative challenge of designing a ship that would be retro within the Star Trek universe yet still accessible to our modern technological sensibilities was a huge challenge. And when efforts to settle on a concept came to a stalemate, they called in the big gun: Doug Drexler. The Academy Award-winning makeup artist and Emmy Award-winning visual effects designer whose hand can be seen across every corner of the Star Trek franchise solved the problem and brought us the NX-01. In this episode of Warp Five, hosts Christopher Jones and Kate Walsh are joined by Doug to talk about how the first Enterprise came to be, about the refit that we might have seen had the show continued, as well as his lifelong love affair with Trek and his work on the various series—including makeup work on TNG’s “The Inner Light.” We also touch on the possibility of Enterprise returning for a fifth season on Netflix, something Doug has avidly supported. Now read the show title in Michael Dorn’s voice and hop aboard for a fascinating discussion!